Scripture Daily

Context No. 32 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 19:1-7: in context

1He entered and was passing through Jericho. 2There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, and couldn’t because of the crowd, because he was short. 4He ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” 6He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully. 7When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner.”

Jesus is passing through Jericho on the road up to Jerusalem, in the last week of his life. Jericho was a wealthy town on a trade route, and a customs post. Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector there, which meant he had bought the right to collect Rome's revenue and made his living from whatever he could extract beyond it. He was rich, and his neighbors would have counted him a traitor working for the occupying power.

He wants to see Jesus and cannot, because the crowd is thick and he is short. So a wealthy official runs ahead and climbs a sycamore tree, which is an undignified thing for a man of his standing to do in public. Jesus reaches the spot, looks up, and calls him by name. Hurry down, he says, today I must stay at your house. Zacchaeus comes down and welcomes him gladly, and the crowd grumbles that Jesus has gone to be the guest of a sinner.

Jesus invites himself to dinner before Zacchaeus has repented or repaid anyone. The restitution comes later, in the verses that follow, and it comes out of the welcome rather than earning it. Who am I waiting to see change before I will sit at a table with them?

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